


The Mother We Share

by QuinnyBee



Category: Gloomverse (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, angst angst angst, slightly OOC? idk, this is basically just an overgrown headcanon that stretched itself to 2800+ words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:04:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9831911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuinnyBee/pseuds/QuinnyBee
Summary: Wallis Gloom is, somehow, both the biggest egomaniacal jerk and the kindest person on the planet. Even if you happen to be his mouthy, cheerless younger brother.Inspired by/title stolen from the CHVRCHES song "The Mother We Share"





	

“So, Wallis, inquiring minds want to know: is it really true that your legacy has grown so much that you have three separate phone lines just to keep up?”

Wallis forces his jaw not to lock even as the bottom of his stomach drops out. Someone's been doing their homework, which surprises him more than a little. Most of these fan-zine interviews are half fawning adoration at the feet of his fame and half slywise detail fishing about some fantasized love life. More often than not he's glad to accept the praise and encourage the illusion for the sake of making things interesting. Genuine questions diving into his private life, however, feel like strangers are knocking on doors better kept locked away from the public. Still, as Wallis learned early on, no matter how badly they catch you on the back foot you can never let them see you sweat.

“You know how these things go,” Wallis says, leaning back in his chair and resting his feet on his broad, empty desk. “No matter how busy things are, it's my duty to the public to keep myself available. A line for business, my personal line, and, obviously, another line for... _personal business_ ,” he adds with a meaningful lowered voice and eyebrow waggle. The interviewer, young and prettyish with light blue hair and a face full of freckles, giggles dutifully and goes a gratifying shade of pink before moving on to her next question. Wallis grins to himself. _Nailed it._

He can practically hear Seaweed in his ear razzing him about boldface lying to his adoring masses, but really he's not not telling the truth. He does have a landline in the house for business calls (and the occasional other conversations when he really wants to have the satisfaction of hanging up on whoever's on the other end); there's a “personal” line given out at fan events that's mostly a glorified voicemail he uses as an ego boost on bad days; and there's his actual personal line that's mostly just for Seaweed these days. Business, personal, personal business: classic misdirection by way of the truth. Show the audience nothing but your right hand and they'll forget your left hand even exists. And they'll never think to ask why, if you only have three phone lines, there are four phone numbers with your name on them.

 

The interview eats up the rest of his day, as “quick, in and out twenty-minute” interviews always seem to. Wallis sweeps the interviewer out his front door with as much grace and charm as he has left in him and gratefully slams the door shut at her heels. Something still feels rattled loose in his head, even after a protracted dinner and his extensive pre-bed pampering routine. He wonders if it's the sudden spat of weather that's sending ants up his spine. It had been oddly cloudy all day and the storm seemed to be finally finding its feet after sunset. Wallis shudders and yanks his curtains closed. Definitely the storm, he thinks even as his eyes fall on the clunky off-white phone cord snaking up into the drawer of his bedside bureau. There was no reason for a simple, deflectable question to shake him like this, after all. This wasn't going to bother him. He isn't superstitious, obviously, and there was no way on earth that this was a sign. Just another coincidence not worth the wasted time involved in checking into it.

There are two messages blinking up at him as Wallace hauls the phone up out of the drawer. One is from a satellite phone and is half an hour long; the other runs less than a minute long and lists the callback number of a payphone downtown. Wallis grimaces, groaning quietly to himself as he carefully avoids enduring that message just yet. He presses play on the first message, settling back into his cocoon of pillows. 

Petunia Gloom's voice chimes from the other end, affectionately chiding him for not visiting enough before going on to detail her gardens' progress and all the interesting things she brought back from her latest hike. Wallis can't help the smile that creeps across his face as he closes his eyes and listens to his mother talk at him. Her voice, even strained across satellites and compressed on to cassette tape, always feels like home. Too soon his mother signs off her botanical newsflash with a cheery “take care of yourself, all right? Love you bunches, my little shooting star!” and the machine clicks onto the next.

The second message starts the way most of these messages do: a long, hateful pause at the beginning followed by a few noises that aren't quite words and some harsh breathing. This time, though, the breathing doesn't hold the usual tinge of barely-restrained resentment. The caller sounds irritable but winded, like they can't manage to pull in a full breath. There's a hard gasp as they try, followed by a long bout of hacking coughs, a bitten-off expletive, and the _click-brzzzz_ of the phone going dead. Wallis feels the bottom of his gut drop away for the second time that day as the auto-voice of the machine tells him the time stamp: two days ago, around midnight.

Wallis throws his legs over the side of his bed and strides headlong for the door. He pauses halfway there and walks back, reeling in the phone cord as he goes. Two days is a long time, he thinks as he turns back around and starts for the door again. A lot of things can happen in two days. 

_Yeah,_ the Voice Of Reason part of his brain reminds him, _like Gloom bucking up and getting help on his own. Like an adult. Which he is._

True enough, Wallis thinks, fingers tangling in the mess of stretched cord as he gathers it up a second time. Maybe his brother hung up because he'd pushed past his pride and headed somewhere safer than a phone booth. Maybe it was better not to poke that sleeping dragon and just let things go as they were. Two days was a long time.

A flash of lightning blazes in through his curtains, followed by a crack of thunder loud enough to shake the floor. Wallis manages to hold back the squawk of surprise threatening at the back of his throat, but his hands shake a little. That squares it, he decides. He sits down hard on his bed, planting himself onto the pillowtop before gathering up the mess he's made of his phone and throwing the whole thing back into the drawer in a heap. There's no way in hell he's subjecting himself to that wet, windy, loud nonsense. Wallis shudders just thinking about being out there in that. And then he thinks about his brother, already out there in that. And then he's heading for the door.

 

Wallis creeps along the city street, windshield wipers on full and radio turned down so that he can see the shop signs better. He probably should have just let Guard drive and save himself the frayed nerves. For all he knows Guard might have even offered it as Wallis blazed past him and into the garage; the last half hour is a hazy blur of throwing half the contents of his medicine cabinet into a bag and running out the door in Wallis's frazzled memory. It doesn't matter now anyway, Wallis supposes as he catches sight of a bookstore that seems familiar. He pulls into a no parking zone and kills the engine, flipping on the limo's hazard lights as an afterthought. Wallis snatches up the bag of medicine and his hat, umbrella, and a half-finished bottle of water from the driver's side cup holder before shoving open the car door. There's a sound like approaching radio static and before Wallis can even open his umbrella the storm's newest barrage has soaked him to the skin. Wallis scowls and mutters poison at the weather gods, tromping off through the puddles.

His brother has a few different boltholes around this part of town that he likes to scuttle into when he he needs somewhere to sleep, but Wallis is pretty sure that this alley is the closest to the payphone his brother's message came from. He skirts around a few of the deeper puddles and tries not to breath too deeply through his nose. Thoughts of his soft, dry bed away from all this drama and weather try to seduce him back to the car, but Wallis reminds himself that if he's gone this far he might as well finish. Even if he's soaked to the knee and pretty sure he just stepped in something that was alive at one point but has since ceased to be.

His fragile resolve pays off as he finds his brother camped out at the far end of the alley next to the municipal privacy fence. Scrambled in with the black garbage bags and raccoon-rumaged metal trash bins sits half of a refrigerator box covered in familiar cartoonish crayon scribbles. Wallis doesn't let himself think about how, if you tilt your head and squint, it looks a bit like the front of his childhood home. Instead he squats down and props the handle of his umbrella up on one shoulder, using both hands to tip back the box.

His brother is bundled into that awful filthy white coat under the box, his legs folded together and crammed in under the hem to escape the storm's chill. He seems to be using his hat as a kind of quasi-pillow, face smeared down the side of it and one hand in a death-grip on the brim; the other arm clutches his stuffed bear tight under his chin. He smells like a month without soap and looks like sallow, mud-spattered death. Harold shivers and lets out a wheezing cough as the cold air hits him, curling tighter around his possessions against the wind.

“Hey, Gloom. Wake up,” Wallis says. Harold gives a half-hearted grumble in reply but doesn't move. “Hey. C'mon.” Nothing. “Gloom! Rise and shine, lazy-ass,” Wallis says. When there's still no tangible reply, Wallis reaches out one hand and flicks his brother hard in the middle of his forehead. Harold snorts and hacks out another cough, eyes squinting half-open. He focuses on Wallis for a moment, then rolls his eyes and settles back down.

“Great. 'M h'lucinating,” he mumbles. Wallis scoffs. 

“As if your small mind could come up with something as great as me,” Wallis replies. He flicks his brother in the forehead again, earning a bleary glare.

“Not real, still—” Harold breaks off into a long coughing fit, each breath coming in with a wheeze so sharp it sounds like he might snap in half. “Still annoying,” he croaks before hacking into his sleeve again. Wallis reaches out to give him a helpful thump on the back, but Harold just glowers and swats his hand away. “Just leave me here to die,” Harold mutters. He settles back down onto the waterlogged lump of grimy newspaper he's using as a mattress and flails one hand up to pull the box back down over himself. Wallis frowns and tips it higher out of his reach.

“Ungrateful much, Gloom?” he says. “I came all the way out here to help, you know.”

Harold snorts. “Psht. Now I know I'm delirious.”

“Seriously, why do you keep saying that?” Wallis asks, his patience officially wearing thin.

“Why _else_ would you be here? It's not like you've ever cared about me before.”

Wallis chokes on a snide retort as all the air leaves his lungs at once. His brother tosses out the comment like it's established fact, flat and bland and sharp as a kick in the chest. “That's. That's not true,” Wallis manages to croak finally. Harold doesn't reply, eyes squinted shut and mouth set in a hard line. Part of Wallis—the petty, angry part that always seems to spark up to the forefront when his brother digs at him like this—is hissing in his ear for him to just drop the box and cut his losses before both of them end up with pneumonia. That would be in keeping with the way his brother saw him, Wallis thinks, and it feels like a knife between his ribs. Wallis set his jaw and flicks Harold in the forehead again.

“Do you _mind_?” Harold snarls, eyes snapping open. Wallis drops the bag of medicine in front of him in reply.

“Fine. You got me. I'm your imaginary friend using your brother's face to kick you when you're down,” Wallis replies shortly. “Will you take some medicine now?”

Harold looks from the bag to Wallis and back, all but pulling out a notepad and pen to weigh the pros and cons. Pros seem to win, as he props himself up onto one elbow and drags the bag open to see what Wallis brought. “Did you mug a pharmacy on your way here?” Harold asks, tossing aside a bottle of antacid, half a box of sleep aid tablets, and an almost-empty jar of B12 vitamin pills Wallis didn't remember still having. He finally unearths the box of cold medicine and dry swallows two of the teal-blue nighttime pills. Harold unselfconsciously helps himself to the rest of the card of pills and a partial box of lozenges, slipping both into the inside pocket of his coat.

“Happy?” Harold asks around a yawn.

“Drink this, and stop being mouthy,” Wallis replies, uncapping the water and handing it over. While his brother is distracted by chugging the drink in one long swig and then complaining about it tasting like it's been in someone's car for a week, Wallis tugs off one of his gloves and presses the back of his hand to Harold's forehead. He's definitely warm, and there's a clammy sheen to his skin, but Wallis can't tell if it's from the fever or the weather. Harold huffs and drops his gaze, but doesn't swat him away.

“Seriously, are you done? 'M tired,” Harold mumbles.

Wallis wants to say something, to apologize or to just bridge the space between them, but nothing he thinks of manages to make it out of his mouth. Instead, he gives a vague half-nod and reaches down to gather up the discarded contents of his medicine cabinet. Harold scrunches together around his hat and his bear again like a filthy candy-striped kitten, teeth chattering as a shock of wind rattles down the alley toward them. Wallis reaches into his hat and shuffles around until his hand hits the edge of the blanket Guard insists on keeping in the limo's trunk. He pulls it out and carefully tucks it around his brother. Harold seems so small somehow, pale and sickly and balled up under a blanket in the garbage like this. Before he can second-guess himself, Wallis reaches into his wallet and pulls out the wad of petty cash he keeps tucked into the back lining for emergencies. He stuffs the folded bills into Harold's coat pocket next to the cold pills, then gently pulls the blanket back into place.

“Take care of yourself, all right, you little snot?” Wallis mutters, resting his hand on Harold's head.

If Harold replies, Wallis doesn't hear it. He lets the box fall back down over his brother and after a moment rests his umbrella over the box to help keep the rain off. Wallis jams his hat back onto his head and crosses his arms tight over his chest, the sudden torrent of water down the back of his neck turning his bones to ice. He half-runs back out of the alley, head bowed against the rain. 

 

If he almost slams headlong into someone with red hair and frayed jeans who greets him with an obnoxiously cheery “Heya, Wallis!”, Wallis doesn't notice. If he runs every single red light on the way back home, foot jamming the gas pedal to the floor and radio turned all the way up to drown out the rain and potential police sirens, Wallis doesn't notice. If he ends up tossing and turning all night, guilt and thunder compounding in his stomach until he washes down a sleeping pill with a swig of pink bismuth at two in the morning, Wallis doesn't notice. 

And if he has to use a little more concealer to cover the dark circles and mainline eyedrops to kill the bloodshot, hungover glaze in his eyes, or if it takes a little more energy to pull out a big shiny PR smile for his new publicity photos, no one on the fan-zine staff seems to notice. 

Show the audience nothing but your right hand, and they'll forget your left hand even exists.

**Author's Note:**

> This originally came to me as a headcanon about Wallis memorizing the callback numbers to all the payphones in town so he could keep an eye on his brother.
> 
> And then my brain sidled up with that knowing little smirk on its metaphorical face and went "Gee, that sure is sad. But you know what would be reeeeally tragic? >:3c" And here we are.


End file.
